God gave us a Church. We need
to make use of it as we should

St Theophan the
Recluse

Festal Vigil
turnout

Our church must seek a
blessing.

Day of the
Holy Spirt, May 11/24 2010

It was a pleasure to see such a good turn-out for our
Festal Pentecost Vigil. With a full choir, our deacon Fr. Nicholas serving the
entire vigil, and a significant portion of our community praying together, we
were truly able to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit in a fitting way.
This sort of effort brings great profit to the soul. I could feel this, and I
hope that you could too.

God willing, we will have another festive vigil in a few
weeks (the exact date is not yet scheduled). We hope to have Fr Nicholas serve
an entire vigil monthly. The other weeks, we will of course serve vigil as we
always have, but I will serve it alone, or possibly Fr Nicholas will serve
Vespers with me, then be the choir for matins. It is my fervent desire that we
gain the zeal to have festive vigils every weekend. This takes an investment of
time from more than just the clergy. The dividends are enormous for our
community. With God's help, we will start with monthly "Festive" vigils, as we
are able to have enough people to "pull it off".

Today, the Day of the Holy Spirt, we await news on the
occupancy date in our new temple. All is ready, except for a dispute with the
city about the type of perimeter fence we must put up. They are requiring a
very expensive concrete fence, which is tens of thousands of dollars
above our means; we are asking to put in a living fence, with "Nellie R
Stevens" hollies, which will be more or less a bit over our means and much more
attractive. The savings will be over $30,000. We submitted paperwork to the
city today, and if they are cooperative, go before the planning and zoning
commission June 8th to plead our case. We could be planting June 9th, and in
the next weekend, or we could be delayed by many months, with a new and empty
temple, and two mortgages, and no fence, and a demoralized community. We have
over 12 letters from neighbors which state that they want a living fence, and
pictures and a bunch of other stuff - but without God's blessing upon our
endeavors, we have nothing.

How can we gain
God's blessing for our endeavors?

There is a simple, and yet difficult answer. We
pray and live the Christian life. Since we are a community of
Christians, gathered around our temple, we must emphasize our corporate
prayer.

Archpriest David Moser recently published a homily on
Pentecost[1]
which included a Homily by St. Theophan the Recluse, entitled: "God gave us
a Church. We need to make use of it as we should". Please read it with
care. I was thinking thoughts which were similar during our vigil with so many
present.

May God grant that when we get into our new temple, we
will be deserving of the blessing by utilizing it for prayer. If we do this, we
will surely use it well for other important things - teaching, outreach to the
community, Red Cross blood drives, etc - but as St Theophan says, if we do not
use the church for prayer first and foremost, we cannot expect our labors to
have a blessing.

So, your labors and cares in the construction of another
needed church are complete. Thanks be to God for such a gift! I say a gift
because, even though you had quite a bit of work, what could you have done if
it had not been for God! In rendering help in unexpected troubles as well as in
everything else, haven't you felt His imminent helping hand? Openly proclaiming
the gift, what shall we give the Lord, our Benefactor, in return? Let us give
what is due to His intent, by using the gift, namely:

1. The church was not built to be an external, empty
witness of good order, but to be always filled with those for whom it is
designated. And this places on you the obligation to be present in this church
for all services established by the rule [typicon]. Having taken vows to labor
for God in prayer and ascetic labors, you, of course, do not intend to indulge
your laziness in this regard. Don't be tempted by any of the attractive
pretexts common to workers like yourselves, In the first place, don't allow the
urge to miss this or that Divine Service tempt you because of a need to
complete necessary work. Remember that any work cannot be successful if God's
blessing is not upon it, and that blessing must be called down from Heaven. By
which means? And where? Through prayer in church. When the blessing has been
sought, one hour takes the place of a whole day's labor; but without the
blessing everything falls apart and gets mixed up, and the day goes to waste. I
think you have already had a lot of experience with this. Do not incriminate
yourselves.

Secondly. don't be tempted to yield to the artificially
attractive idea of staying in your cell (or at home) while the others are going
to church, out of the wish to pray with a little more fervency in solitude.
Aren't there other times for solitary prayer than the hours set aside for
common prayer? If so, then pray alone at those times. You must always go to the
common service established by the rule. Here, in assembly, prayer is warmer and
more fervent, and always more fruitful. Where two or three are gathered in My
name, says the Lord, there am I in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20), and where
there is God, there is every spiritual good. What a pity that some people
deprive themselves of this treasure! Doesn't it happen that some who stay in
their cells not only miss the common prayer but also don't manage to pray at
home, and in this way do two wrongs - break the rule and harm themselves as
well? Therefore, isn't it better to set yourself a rule once and for all, never
to yield to such a thought?

Thirdly, don't be tempted to indulge yourself in not
coming to church at the beginning of the service or leaving before it is over.
Remember, each service is a complete unit and it can provide its full benefit
only in its entirety. Just as food is tasty only when it is fully seasoned, so
the service can completely satisfy the spiritual taste only when it is heard in
full. Thus, he who misses the beginning or does not remain until the end is
laboring, but he deprives himself of the fruit of his labor? or, he creates
with one hand and destroys with the other. So, having built, decorated and
consecrated this church, go to it without fail, rejecting all false
pretexts-and this is of primary importance.

2. Further, one must go to church not inattentively, but
as one should. It is always possible that one may go to church not in a way
worthy of praise but rather of condemnation, i.e., by going and not receiving
any spiritual benefit. Everything in this regard can be converted by the
following rules: at the first stroke of the bell, you must drop any work, and
prepare your soul for prayer in church, reciting the prayer "Virgin Mother of
God, rejoice!" or "Heavenly King," "Our Father," or some other such prayer.
Approaching the church, you must leave every care and worry about your affairs
at the threshold in order to enter with a serene mind. Entering the church, you
must put on reverence like a garment, remembering to Whom we are coming and to
Whom we intend to address our prayers. Having taken your place in church (best
of all, the same place each time), you should gather your thoughts and mentally
stand before the face of the omnipresent God, offering Him reverent worship in
body and spirit, with a contrite heart and in humble reverence. After this, you
must follow, without wandering thoughts, everything that is going on what is
being sung and read in the church all the way to the end of the service. That
is all! In this way, we won't be bored in church, looking here and there and
starting conversations, and we won't be wishing that the service be over soon.
Instead, passing from one prayerful feeling to another and from one reverent
thought to the next, we will be like those in a fragrant garden, moving from
one group of flowers to another. Consequently, spiritual warmth, which is the
fruit of attentive prayer, will fill our hearts with ineffable sweetness, which
won't allow us to notice the physical hardship of standing and will make every
service short. On the other hand, one who is inattentive to what is taking
place in church, who dreams of empty things and activities, doesn't help those
matters but wastes the time of prayer. He upsets himself and deprives himself
of the fruit of prayer, which is, so to speak, ready to be put into his hand.
May the Lord deliver you from this sin!

3. Using church services as we should, we will gain,
little by little, the main thing for which these visible churches are given to
us - that is, continuous mental prayer to God in our heart, which makes of our
heart a temple of God not built by human hands. The commandment to pray has
been given us by the holy Apostles; all the holy ascetics have striven after
it. We will be ashamed if, having established this external church, we don't
take care to establish the internal Church for which the external church
actually exists. What is the use of having a tool and not knowing how to use it
to do that for which it is made? The one who comes to all the services without
fail and listens to them as he should can easily attain this priceless
spiritual good. ... He doesn't have to add much to this labor of uninterrupted
attendance at church; but he must take care to preserve unextinguished the
warmth of heart which is ignited in church through preservation of attention,
by which his soul is blessed in church. And for this, he must enjoy [sitting
alone in his cell (except for necessary work)], frequent worship of God [before
the icons], [sometimes] reading the Word of God and patristic writings, and,
most importantly, acquiring the habit of continuously repeating the short but
powerful prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me" Through
these labors, the soul will be sanctified more and more with the blessed
presence of God, which raises the mind to God and lifts the heart with
delightful sighing; this, really, is uninterrupted prayer.

I wish you most of all this gift of God as a reward for
your labor. Having established and decorated this dwelling place of God, be
yourselves established within it, the spiritual temple, to offer sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (I Peter 2:4-5). Amen.